As I learnt from this post, Google has no ability to search for special characters. Let's say I want to search for ss!. Are there any other search engines that can achieve this? Please do not propose any programming code search engines since this is a general search.

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well the more popular search engines do not preserve punctuation as they use it as operators. I do not understand why you do want to use a programming code search engine if it will do the job. Your only other option is to just use as is for example += ---> plus equals .
– phwd♦Jul 6 '10 at 12:18

Think of this case: My computer has some folders with some files named as MM! without extension. This could be done by a virus or a program. The search results fetched for MM! is nonsense.
– Mehper C. PalavuzlarJul 6 '10 at 12:43

1

Okay I get it now , but it would depend on the situation, if i do *MM!* I will get the first hit as Symantec site threat list, where just MM! would give millimetre etc. What folder is it in ? is it a program folder a system folder, is that the real file name ? descriptions like these will lead to a better search it still applies to the += case. What are you asking for is localized and will not be able to make a top hit unless more information is placed in the query
– phwd♦Jul 7 '10 at 13:53

3

I usually try to put it in context. If you're searching for something as short as ss! it will greatly help Google if you supply as much information as you can. Also, try putting quotes around terms that need to be found together.
– matpieJul 7 '10 at 22:13

2

putting the keyword (with special character) in quotes does not work. is there any other methods?
– wilsonOct 7 '10 at 9:25

Google and all other major search engines ignore most special
characters, usually treating them as whitespace, even if you put your
query in quotes. Try searching for "C++ >>" on Google to see what we
mean: the ">>" part is ignored! On SymbolHound, information about the >>
operator in C++ (the bitwise operator) is on the first page of results. This kind of > case where symbols make a large difference is
especially common in programming- and math-related fields.

Do you have an advanced search feature?

Sure do. Features include searching by phrase, searching by url,
and excluding certain terms. It is also linked in the navigation bar
on the top-right of every SymbolHound page.

Which websites are searchable on SymbolHound?

SymbolHound's index is currently focused on programming-related
websites, such as the question-and-answer website Stack Overflow, and
we are adding more pages all the time. Do you know of a website you'd
like SymbolHound to index? Let us know.

IMO, SymbolHound is a good start but they need to index more pages other than Stack Exchange sites, e.g. forums, other Q&A sites. Furthermore, indexing only programming related sites would not be enough since there can be users searching for special characters unrelated to computers.
– Mehper C. PalavuzlarNov 23 '11 at 18:35

As of today the site says "SymbolHound searches a growing index of programming websites" and does search more than just Stack Overflow.
– ChrisF♦Jan 2 '12 at 23:22

According to one report it appears that Google is now allowing for searches for punctuation. No word on exactly which punctuation is included (although a dozen or so were tested) and I don't see information on punctuation with text.

Not exactly. The first few results include MM! but if you scroll down a little bit, there is no exact results. I also tried xyz# on DuckDuckGo but it couldn't do it.
– Mehper C. PalavuzlarNov 16 '11 at 15:14